Sensors & transducers
Taking HMI at face value T
Industrial measurement systems are embracing vision sensors, as Gabriele Fulco, European product marketing manager at Omron, explains
est engineers are more than familiar with devices in the home that recognise facial expressions or hand
gestures, be it games consoles that they play with their children or mobile phones that unlock with facial recognition. These devices tend to be controlled by buttons on a front panel or at best, feature context-sensitive touch screen interfaces. We are now seeing this kind of technology
being incorporated into industrial measurement systems and the way in which we interact with them will become more and more business critical. Technology has advanced to allow instruments to fulfil many of the same functions as mentioned above. Measurement runs could be stopped and star ted with a hand gesture such as a wave and facial recognition could ensure that it is an authorised person giving the wave. Vision sensors, such as Omron’s HVC,
can recognise a multitude of factors from age and gender through to mood estimation. When you put these options alongside more traditional measurements such as
temperature and pressure, it can open up a world of oppor tunities.
ThE challEnGE OF vIsIOn Whilst the technology exists to do these things, it is not that easy to apply. Successful integration of vision into a measurement system depends critically on the use of good recognition algorithms that deliver a reliable result without using excessive system resources. Where can these be obtained? Even well-designed algorithms will be processor and memory intensive, and adding vision will demand additional system resource. Integrating a camera and lens will require an understanding of optical design, a specialism that few electronics engineers are comfor table with. They will also need to assess the accuracy and consistency of the response, and ensure that the vision module is adequately calibrated for the intended application. The introduction of ready to use modules where all of these issues are already taken care of is a welcome innovation. The Omron HVC-P2 module is a vision
module specifically aimed at measurement systems applications, available in low volumes and readily integrated by any designer without any need to understand the complex algorithms needed to recognise people, faces and expressions or the optical design. The module is a fully integrated, plug-in solution. The developer can just look at the outputs and configure the system to make appropriate decisions depending on their status.
cOrE sOFTwarE Modules like the HVC-P2 rely on consumer technology. HVC builds on the Omron OKAO Vision software, a proven set of image recognition algorithms used in over 500 million digital cameras, mobile phones and surveillance robots around the world. It integrates ten key image sensing functions, a camera and an external interface. Developers can detect a human face, hand or body, and implement face recognition, gender detection, age estimation, mood estimation, facial pose estimation, gaze estimation, and blink estimation. In each case the module returns a value together with a degree
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February 2019 Instrumentation Monthly
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